IMAGINE Poetry Reading

NOVEMBER: Give Thanks for Poetry

Nathan J. Reid & Ken Zahorski

Nathan J. Reid

Nathan J. Reid is a poet living in Madison, Wisconsin. He started early in the arts, joining a theatre company at the age of 15, where he was involved in both the performance and technical aspects of theatre for ten years. At 18, he had his first publication with Teen Ink Magazine, and has been published several times since. Today Nathan is a spoken word poet, combining poetry and performance, exploring and sparking the sweet, poignant and honest good in people. In 2014, he was the featured spoken word artist for HOME: A Group Art Exhibition, Milwaukee Macabre Art Exhibition, Blest Clothing Line’s Spring Fashion Show, and was a featured poet for WFOP’s Poetry Reading Series. For more information on Nathan’s future performances and readings, please visit www.nathanjreid.com.

*We the Firefly*

Today, we are all unraveledour lives pulled

exposing the accordion that blooms from the fragile bonds of our paper dollfolds

we realize we are time travelers, lovers and killerstelepaths and dumb-luck dreamersI am my father and my unborn sonI am the woman on the busthe child in her armsthe driver cussing silently to himself as his pancreas flinches againsteach pothole.

And the universe reveals to ushow we are the most unlikely of every fat truthand the walls we climb daily are laden with false bricks that can be pushedin like a buttonunlocking doors that lead to new spacebut even there we get the feeling *we have been here before*over and over and over.

Somewhere in a run-down apartment there is an ancient princehe’s on his seventeenth lifehe doesn’t understand where he is, the noise in the streetor why these colosseums are dripping from his eyes.There is a sparrow resting her wingsshe’s the embodiment of short and sweetand every day she’s pretty sure that you and I and this whole damn worldis something she dreamt up last night in her sleep.

We are loopers, rabbit hole divers, matrix upon matrixthere is the illusion we are each an individual essencewhen in truth we share one soulit is a firefly caught between the canvas and the paintand it floats across this portrait of existencefilling each life as it does someaning someday, somehow you will be the person sitting next to yousomeway, some life you will see yourself from across the room.

Trust me, for I have been youI have smiled all your smilesyour hearts pump my bloodour pulses are the waves, humanity the moonI have been youyou are loners and regrettersheavily you sit without a dream to hold your handI have seen youtrying to crawl back through the rooms you have already walked throughas if you could rewind, cut, copy, paste, and create anewas if that were some kind of miraclebut tall and glowing, and tall and alive, you have already walked throughI have seen youyou starlight, you midnight wanderersdon’t worry about the phone calls from family you ignoredthey have already forgiven you with hugs and pot roastsdon’t worry about the dead friends who visit your dreams again and againthey are not tormented or lostit just means you love them so much more than the time they were givenfor you are them and they are youI have been youdo not fester in a heap of sour love gone wrongbut rise above it so opportunities may find youif you have hurts at the bottom of your heartdo not go looking at them through the bottoms of your drinksreach down, take them in your handscrumble them to pieces and toss them up to the heavens that swalloweverything yet say nothingbecause this life is a moving cliffand the day we were born was the day we let goso unclench your fistslearn to make music with the air around your fingertipsthe only moment is right here, right nowand right here, right now you’ll find every other momentbe a momentbe the wind that blows through the cemetery where children playbe the relief in somebody’s smile at the end of the daybe a fire-spitting darling at the front of the roombe brave so others can be brave toobe these words for they are no longer minebe soft lips for the springtimebe boogie-woogie, jazz, and soulwhen something wrong is going down, be the voice that yells, *NO!*be the Sun! be the Moon!be a cry for a cry and a truth for a truth!

Today, unravel with meyou are freeme, I have been youI have seen you without a dream to hold your handso hold my handand we the firefly will flow out a new pathresting now and then on the canvas, absorbing rich paintfor I have been youand when I walk around this worldstare into your facesI knowyou have been me too.

-- Nathan J. Reid

Ken Zahorski

Kenneth J. Zahorski, Professor Emeritus of English and Ombudsman at St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wisconsin, is the author or co-author of thirteen books and four poetry chapbooks: Leaves from the Family Tree (2007), More Leaves from the Family Tree (2008), Roots & Other Poems (2011), and Dancing at Dusk &Other Travel Poems (2013). The Kindness of Flowers and Other Poems, his most recent collection, was recently published by the St. Norbert College Press. His award-winning poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines and journals throughout the United States, including The Rockford Review, Pennsylvania English, Delta Epsilon Sigma Journal, English Journal, ByLine, Poem, The Aurorean, Yale Anglers’ Journal, and Avocet. A lifelong naturalist, an avid reader, an extensive traveler, and a collector of seashells and memories, he enjoys membership in The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and The Rockford Writers’ Guild. The father of Twila and Alison, and the grandfather of Amanda, Savanna, and Isabella, he lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with his wife, Marijean, and their cat, Pesto.

Music’s Kiss

Our garden toad was more outgoing than my Uncle Leonard.The toad, at least, croaked and looked you in the eye,while at family get-togethersmy uncle would sit in the darkest corner,

But with a bow and fiddlehe was the Hallelujah Chorus,all hosannas and exultation,small round spectacles flashing white fire,forehead furrows dancing like summer waves, chin making mad loveto the fiddle’s curvaceous body,face sweet and soft as honey.

And there you have it:toad made prince by music’s kiss, his transfiguring eloquencestunning us all into squat silence.